Liberating Possibilities

I was quite heartened to read Yotam Moran’s recent ZNet contribution, “Liberating the Impossible”. It’s a succinct and probably superior expression of a commentary I had been working on to share my wishes for the real potential of the so-called “occupy” movement that has swept the country and offered even the most pessimistic and cynical among decent people at least a glimmer of hope.

Any cursory glance at the occupy manifestations nationwide can see that they offer a promising model for subjective social change. That is, they are transforming the participants in very concrete ways, raising consciousness and empowering people with real skills for participating in social change. Of course, they’re not really making much objective change yet. The occupy actions are already influencing society’s understanding of itself, while perhaps inspiring some hope. But OWS and its offshoots haven’t really made reforms, let alone the kind of structural social changes that will be necessary to address the roots of the laundry list of legitimate complaints offered by the diverse array of occupy participants.

Yotam’s portrayal of what needs to happen for the occupation movement to become a real force for actual, objective change in society is astute. In his words, what is called for is a new “dual power” movement that is

able to prefigure the values of a participatory, egalitarian and solidaristic society in new and liberated institutions, while simultaneously toppling the old, oppressive structures that exploit and constrain. We must build the new and fight the old at the same time. We must do it all while telling the story of the world we are creating, to defeat the story told by the masters of the status quo.

I have been saying stuff like this for a long time (since 1996 really), but I never said it this well. In these few sentences, Yotam has captured the crux of what I call “grassroots dual power strategy”, with a terrific emphasis on the need for inspirational vision.

Right now, thousands of North Americans are living in ad-hoc communities that could be the seeds of a new society. But of course, the occupation sites themselves cannot form the literal foundation of a new society. That basis for change absolutely must be intertwoven with the fabric of the society we have today until it can create an alternative foundation and the worst auspices of anti-social (i.e. oppressive) institutions can be toppled and replaced whole cloth. If we want to pull the proverbial rug out from under institutions like capitalism and government, we need to have at least a convincing patchwork of an alternative carpet mostly in place.

Zuccoti Park and its hundreds of local spinoffs can hardly better serve as the headquarters of a mass movement for social change than could some remote commune or compound. This is because the movement needs more than the popular appeal achieved by the occupy encampments; it must make real connections to the everyday lives of people throughout society. It must not just be relevant to our hearts; it has to become relevant to many more people’s economic, cultural, political, and even personal lives by seeping into the spaces where the rest of the so-called 99 percent spend most of our time.

The headquarters of a successful social change movement for real social liberation will be found in the the workplace, the marketplace, the campus, the town hall, the neighborhood, the congregation, the festival, the home. Only when the movement pervades all of these places and more — offering alternative ways to relate and meet our real-world needs as well as practical ways to fight back or stand in solidarity with fellow resisters — will its true potential become evident to people who today don’t feel a direct connection to the occupy encampments.

I’ve been biting my tongue on these matters since the occupy protests started gaining real steam. Having spent about half my life studying, pondering, discussing, writing, and lecturing on matters of large-scale social change strategy, I hesitate to offer specific ideas for getting from this consciousness-raising stage (which I never knew how to achieve) to the institution-building phase. Those of us looking on from the outside, or coming out of past movements that never accomplished over years a consciousness-raising or imagination-stimulating achievements that the occupiers have already managed, should continue observing and not offering more than encouragement and support during this critical phase. Outsiders using the iconic “human microphone” to say “Go home and start organizing your communities” would rightly be no more welcome than sectarians urging the movement to join some obscure party.

But this fledgling movement has to (and I believe can) make that transition to a dual power. It may come as a natural, evolutionary outgrowth of the occupy phase. Or maybe it will be a leap from spectacular encampment to the far-less-sexy community and workplace organizing activities. Sooner or later, I hope movement participants will recognize a mid-term objective of forming a real dual power capable not only of challenging the dominant system but offering real-world alternatives.

But then again, I think Yotam already said this even better than I can after all these years. And his words are probably going to ring truer with his generation, hopefully more so than mine ever did in my own time. I love the way Yotam portrays the potential for a subsequent phase that would mark the manifestation of a dual-power movement:

We will make a real impact when we re-open the abandoned hospitals and put doctors in them; when we bring the occupation to the schools and the schools to the occupation; when we liberate foreclosed homes not just for a day, but to move families back into them. We will make a real impact when the government sessions where they continue to pass new austerity measures behind our backs are interrupted by our active resistance to them; when the arms trucks can’t get across the bridges because we’ve blocked them; when the banks have to close not their branch lobbies, but their headquarters, because those they have disenfranchised have risen up to barricade their doorways.